Documentary Editions

Documentary editing has been an important component of the OI’s publications programs. Among the editions published by the OI is the still popular 1959 volume of The Adams-Jefferson Letters edited by the OI’s second director, Lester Cappon.

The Carroll Papers

Edited by a team under the leadership of former Omohundro Institute Director Ronald Hoffman, and former OIEAHC Assistant to the Director Sally Mason, the Carroll Papers track five generations of the Carroll family of Maryland. Through birth, death, marriage and other legal records as well as through dozens of letters exchanged by family members, the Carroll Papers paint a vivid picture of one of the few prominent Catholic families of the American Revolutionary War period.

The first three volumes, published as Dear Papa, Dear Charley: The Peregrinations of a Revolutionary Aristocrat, as Told by Charles Carroll of Carrollton and His Father, Charles Carroll of Annapolis, with Sundry Observations on Bastardy, Child-Rearing, Romance, Matrimony, Commerce, Tobacco, Slavery, and the Politics of Revolutionary America, won the Maryland Historical Society Book Prize and the J. Franklin Jameson prize from the American Historical Association.

The Marshall Papers

This is the first edition under the direction of Charles Hobson, of the correspondence and papers of John Marshall (1755–1835), the statesman and jurist who served as chief justice of the United States, 1801–1835. A multivolume project sponsored by William & Mary, the College’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law, and the Omohundro Institute, the edition consists of twelve volumes.

The Tucker Law Papers

The Law Papers of St. George Tucker, edited by Charles Hobson and Joan Lovelace, published Tucker’s case reports in a three-volume edition with scholarly annotations, biographical sketches of the lawyers and judges mentioned in the reports, a glossary that defines specialized legal terms, and a short-title bibliography that provides full bibliographical entries for the sources of citations. A general introductory essay includes an overview of Tucker’s life and career, a survey of the law in post-Revolutionary Virginia, a description of Tucker’s cases and method of reporting, and an appraisal of his jurisprudence. The project was carried out by the OI in association with the College of William & Mary and the College’s Marshall-Wythe School of Law. The three-volume edition was published in 2013.